Creating cross-functional teams to support the district’s technology program is key to the education technology leader’s success. Once the team is created, that’s just the first part of the job. You then have to manage the diversity of the team’s participants to ensure they work and perform well together.

Building a cross-functional team—or a team that involves people from more than one department - requires putting together an A-team of staff in differing roles from different departments to find a solution to a problem or improve a process or situation.

A cross-functional team is a group of employees from various functional areas of the district who are focused on a specific objective or task and who must work as a team to resolve issues and produce results. Here are a list of benefits of forming a cross-functional team. As the education technology leader you will be doing the following.

Encouraging a collaborative culture – With different backgrounds and areas of expertise come together to form a collective knowledge base, you will be elevate the team’s synergy for creating innovative solutions.

Encouraging continuing education and experimentation – working with others in different roles and in different departments creates a learning environment. An autonomous culture spurs learning and innovation.

Building relationships with others outside of your team and/or department – having a constructive conversation about solving problems or improving processes with others you don’t know so well is a great way to become more familiar with other parts of the district. Plus it’s a great way to make friends.

Exercising communication skills – working with others outside of your team puts your communication skills to the test. The challenges and strengths with communication come out when we have to do it with people we’re not used to communicating with.

Honing in on your leadership skills – working with others that don’t know you as well gives you a chance to try new skills that you’ve been learning.

Practicing conflict resolution skills – Natural sources of conflict when working with cross-functional teams are: differences in educational/training background, differences in work processes and tools, and lack of understanding of roles/purpose of roles. Knowing that these are common issues that come up and recognizing them when they do crop up is a leadership skill that sets you apart from others. When you recognize a conflict, start working on it as quick as you can. Great things result from constructive conflict.

Mixing it up – We are more innovative when things and people present different situations. Cross-functional teams are exciting purely for the fact that they shake things up a bit. Sometimes it feels like it’s for the better, and sometimes it feels like it’s for the worse, but either way, you’re in for a break from the daily grind. Get people to break free from their mental roadblocks and daily habits by throwing them into a new environment.

Sparking innovation – Different people working together with different perspectives brings about out of the box thinking.

Speeding things up - When everyone brings their best practices to the table, a team can thrive. A self-aware team member knows what holds their department back—and, on the flip side, knows what roadblocks to avoid and how best to leverage the team’s resources. It’s this kind of departmental knowledge that only comes from working in the trenches for some time that can be a huge help when figuring out what your department can bring to the table in a cross-functional team.

Rallying to work on one goal – all things are better when the team shares the responsibilities. When everyone is uniting under the district’s vision, everyone is more engaged and inspired.

Opportunity to solve big problems – that’s the reason for a cross-functional team – to solve something BIG. Great minds working together can solve big problems.

Members of a cross-functional team do two things:

They serve as the voice for their department or functional area and bring information from their department to the discussion.

They bring information back to their department or functional area from team discussions, activities, and decisions.

The following are some ideas and questions to consider when building cross-functional teams by Susan Heathfield, a Human Resources expert. She is a management and organization development consultant who specializes in human resources issues and in management development to create forward-thinking workplaces. She is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and contributes regularly to professional publications including a book chapter for ASTD and an article in the American Society for Quality's Journal for Quality and Participation.

Clear expectations

Content

Commitment

Competence

Charter

Control

Collaboration

Communication

Creative Innovation

Consequences

Coordination

Cultural Change

Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership clearly communicated its expectations for the team's performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention, and interest directed its way by executive leaders?

Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organization attain its communicated business goals? Can team members define their team's importance to the accomplishment of corporate goals? Does the team understand where its work fits into the total context of the organization's goals, principles, vision, and values?

Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers? Do team members anticipate recognition for their contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity?

Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement, is each step of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill, and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies, and support needed to accomplish its mission?

Charter: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision, and strategies to accomplish the mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other coordinating group support what the team has designed?

Control: Does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and time resources) defined at the beginning of the project before the team experiences barriers and rework? Are the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood by all members of the organization? Has the organization defined the team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is there a defined review process so both the team and the organization are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members hold each other accountable for project timelines, commitments, and results? Does the organization have a plan to increase opportunities for self-management among organization members?

Collaboration: Does the team understand team and group process? Do members understand the stages of group development? Are team members working together effectively interpersonally? Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members? team leaders? team recorders? Can the team approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting, and measurement jointly? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team charter? Has the team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict resolution, consensus decision making, and meeting management? Is the team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?

Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organization provide important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed?

Creative Innovation: Is the organization really interested in change? Does it value creative thinking, unique solutions, and new ideas? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and maintain the status quo? Does it provide the training, education, access to books and films, and field trips necessary to stimulate new thinking?

Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems? Is the organization designing reward systems that recognize both team and individual performance? Is the organization planning to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Can contributors see their impact on increased organization success?

Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Do teams understand the concept of the internal customer—the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-functional and multi-department teams common and working together effectively? Is the organization developing a customer-focused process-focused orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?

Culture Change: Does the organization recognize that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling the organizational culture of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organization it may currently be? Is the organization planning to or in the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises, hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it employs? Does the organization plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk? Does the organization recognize that the more it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive in payback from the work of the teams?

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: What successes have you had in creating, supporting and managing cross-functional teams?